Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna

There. The Geek has joined the seemingly obbligato post-election paeans of praise to the Agent of Change and General Purpose Deliverer.

The sounds of joy coming from Europe, Kenya and assorted (small) portions of the Mideast in no way obscures a really, really basic fact. The world goes on. Just as it did yesterday. Just as it will tomorrow.

Even if no one else made this reality clear the Russians did. The Geek gives the lads in the Kremlin a big thumbs up for showing that they still have a firm grip on reality even if a goodly chunk of We the People seem to have lost ours.

With a glum grimness which would have done Molotov proud back in the Bad Old Days of the Cold War, the Kremlin muttered that it was ready, willing and able to deploy a new generation of shortish range missiles aimed at Europe unless the (new) US administration backed off from the installation of ABMs in Poland. This hardline stance was underscored in the past few days by the Russians having tested a new ICBM and executing an operational readiness shoot of one of their aging heavy throw-weight boosters.

Time for the man with the Audacity to Hope to get a grip on the fact that the Russians are not going to go away. Neither are they going to be dissuaded from fully regaining not only the reality of Great Power status but the American recognition that they possess that status.

The world goes on in its established trajectories. Slogans and promises of change, rhetorical flourishes delivered in a victory speech don't alter that dynamic in the slightest.

Need more proof?

Perhaps the President-elect can take some comfort from the offer of improved (fraternal?) relations from the Left Socialist strongman of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez. OK. Then how about the offer being accompanied by some real action on the one-time paratrooper's part. Say, perhaps ending the ties between his far left government and the Iranian backed jihadists? If that's too much, then how about cancelling his gigabuck arms purchase from Russia? Heck, the Venezuelan economy can't afford it with oil prices going further south than Terra del Fuego.

(Or perhaps, ole Hugo expects that with the Pelosi-Reid-Obama global warming freaks running the US show, the cost of energy will go exoatmospheric real fast.)

The Geek noticed that Kim Jong Il didn't send a congratulatory message. The Hermit Kingdom of the North didn't suddenly wake up and join the world in celebration of a "new dawn." An American election didn't change a single North Korean ambition or calculation.

Throughout the Mideast and the Persian Gulf, the reaction was not much more unrestrained than that coming from North Korea. Carefully calculating and cynical men with many years experience dealing with and observing American politicians both before and after elections has muted any urge to celebrate "change." History weighs heavily in these areas. People know that real alteration in the trajectories of human institutions come slowly--if at all.

The gerontocracy in the Forbidden City is even less likely to be excited by the outcome of the election. No one knows better than the Chinese how little reality changes despite the application of cosmetics. No nation has a better understanding of the power of history. No national leadership understands more profoundly than the Chinese the reality that interests, genuine interests of state and rulers trump all matters of transience such as personality, political agenda or even ideology.

Even in Western Europe where the accolades have been flying with wild abandon, the underlying reality is different. The Europeans have watched US presidents come and go. At the same time they have been forced to recognise that American definitions of American interests remain unchanged. More, these interests remain unchangeable. Unless and until the US declines to second rate status, its self-defined interests will remain paramount whether arrogantly or humbly expressed. The interests of Washington come first.

Would President Obama have it any other way? Would he have the US attempt to resign its status as a Great Power? Would he and his supporters and cheerleaders alike argue that the world would become a far better place if the US retreated to its own borders and stopped polluting the Earth with its presence?

No. Of course not. No Great Power in history has ever successfully resigned its status. No Great Power has ever been allowed to resign. The world wouldn't let the US step down from Great Power status when we desperately wanted to back in the Twenties and Thirties. The world wouldn't let us crawl back into our hemispheric hole in the Seventies when, following our defeat in Vietnam and the scandals of Watergate, We the People demanded that we do so.

No. Subjectively defined American interests don't change. No responsible government anywhere wants them to. Sure, many would like us to act as George W. Bush promised we would so many lies ago, "humbly." And, perhaps we should.

But, not so humbly as to seem to be losing our political will and nerve. Governments around the world, those who wish us well and those who wish us ill want to know where the US stands, what it will tolerate, what it will seek, what it will ignore. Without the US providing a firm place, a solid stance for and against which other states can react, the order of the world crumbles, slightly perhaps but noticeably.

Whether We the People and those we elect like the idea or even have wit enough to recognise the existence of the idea, a fundamental reality exists today as it did yesterday and will tomorrow. It's a simple idea.

Get a grip on it.

The US is a Great Power. Beyond that, it is first among the several Great Powers of the world. Not France. Not Great Britain. Not Russia. Not China. Nor Japan. Nor Germany. Nor India.

The US alone is first among Great Powers.

As the old cliche has it, "The more things change, the more they stay the same."